Civilian Complaints Research Articles

Politics, Police Accountability, and Public Health: Civilian Review in Newark, New Jersey.

Police brutality, a longstanding civil rights issue, has returned to the forefront of American public debate. A growing body of public health research shows that excessive use of force by police and racial profiling have adverse effects on health for African Americans and other marginalized groups. Yet, interventions to monitor unlawful policing have been met with fierce opposition at the federal, state, and local levels. On April 30, 2015, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey signed an executive order establishing a Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) to monitor the Newark Police Department (NPD). Using a mixed-methods approach, this study examined how advocates and government actors accomplished this recent policy change in the face of police opposition and after a 50-year history of unsuccessful attempts in Newark. Drawing on official public documents, news media, and interviews conducted in April and May 2015, I propose that: (1) a Department of Justice investigation of the NPD, (2) the activist background of the Mayor and his relationships with community organizations, and (3) the momentum provided by the national Black Lives Matter movement were pivotal in overcoming political obstacles to reform. Examining the history of CCRB adoption in Newark suggests when and where advocates may intervene to promote policing reforms in other US cities.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) predictors of police officer problem behavior and collateral self-report test scores.

The current study examined the predictive validity of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF; Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008/2011) scores in police officer screenings. We utilized a sample of 712 police officer candidates (82.6% male) from 2 Midwestern police departments. The sample included 426 hired officers, most of whom had supervisor ratings of problem behaviors and human resource records of civilian complaints. With the full sample, we calculated zero-order correlations between MMPI-2-RF scale scores and scale scores from the California Psychological Inventory (Gough, 1956) and Inwald Personality Inventory (Inwald, 2006) by gender. In the hired sample, we correlated MMPI-2-RF scale scores with the outcome data for males only, owing to the relatively small number of hired women. Several scales demonstrated meaningful correlations with the criteria, particularly in the thought dysfunction and behavioral/externalizing dysfunction domains. After applying a correction for range restriction, the correlation coefficient magnitudes were generally in the moderate to large range. The practical implications of these findings were explored by means of risk ratio analyses, which indicated that officers who produced elevations at cutscores lower than the traditionally used 65 T-score level were as much as 10 times more likely than those scoring below the cutoff to exhibit problem behaviors. Overall, the results supported the validity of the MMPI-2-RF in this setting. Implications and limitations of this study are discussed.

Coda: Snared in Bureaucracy

Coda: Snared in Bureaucracy

To serve and protect? Electronic health records pose challenges for privacy, autonomy and person-centered medicine

This paper highlights potential challenges to privacy posed by electronic health records and proposes to increase patient involvement in maintaining the privacy of their data. Electronic health records are heavily promoted in the United States, rendering sensitive health information accessible and potentially jeopardizing patient privacy. Yet certain HIPAA regulations are consistently violated, suggesting that the Federal Government is unable to fully enforce privacy standards. On the other hand, proportionately there are few civilian complaints to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), implying that patients are unaware of privacy breaches, the means to report them, or both. Without permitting patient control over information, the proposed privacy system assumes that leakages will occur and offers to notify patients of breaches after the fact. This deprives patients of the right to defend their intimate details, which are more available to caretakers, employers, and insurers than ever. Our proposed solution is to render usage of patient information transparent by default, so that patients can monitor and control who is privy to what input. This will enhance patient empowerment, feeding into improved governmental control over health data.

Types of Complaints Eligibile for Police Mediation

Although a number of studies have analyzed ADR programs in the court and general contexts, very little quantitative analysis of police mediation system design exists, particularly regarding the types of complaints that are considered appropriate for mediation. The academic literature on police mediation has merely attempted to summarize the personal opinions of experienced mediators, taken somewhat extreme theoretical positions, or rehashed this data while trying to fit it into generalized mediation theory. As civilian agencies for processing civilian complaints against police officers have been in existence for, in some cases, over 25 years, this may seem surprising. However, many civilian oversight agencies did not initially have a formal mediation program (most still do not), and the number of complaints referred to mediation, even in the oldest programs, remained low until the last five to ten years. Thus, the amount of data available on mediation has probably not been sufficient, until recently, to support a statistically significant analysis of the relationship between the fundamental nature of a complaint and an eventual successful outcome in mediation, however one chooses to define that success. Though this article does not perform such an analysis, it will attempt to offer more detailed hypotheses regarding the types of complaints that are appropriate for mediation in the context of law enforcement. The bases of these hypotheses in many cases are data collected in studies of community or court mediation programs. Most existing data deals with non-criminal matters, but several studies have examined mediation in the context of criminal allegations by a complainant.

An exploratory study of the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board mediation program

PurposeThis study seeks to provide an exploratory analysis of the level of satisfaction of citizens and police officers who participated in police complaint mediation. The New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board's mediation program served as the case sample.Design/methodology/approachA two‐page questionnaire, of multiple choice and open‐ended questions, was sent to the sample population (N=285) of officers and complainants who either had their cases mediated or fully investigated.FindingsComplainants who participated in mediation were significantly more satisfied with the police complaint procedure, and the NYPD as a whole, than those whose cases were fully investigated. Two major areas of research concern also emerged from the data: a need for an analysis of the cases where complainants wish to avoid face‐to‐face meetings with subject officers, and a clarification of the expectations of mediation participants.Research limitations/implicationsThis study's low response rate (18.2 percent) warrants caution in generalizing the findings of this study. Another limitation to this research was the cross‐sectional survey design; a pre‐post survey design would better determine whether the sample bias existed.Practical implicationsThis research helps to inform police and civilian oversight officials of the effectiveness of police complaint mediation. In addition, this study highlights areas which merit future investigation.Originality/valueThis paper is the first examination of the satisfaction of police complaint mediation participants in the United States. This research is helpful for police and civilian oversight administrators considering the establishment of such a program, or those seeking the improvement of an existing one.

Can Effective Policing Also Be Respectful? Two Examples in the South Bronx

Crime in New York City declined dramatically following the introduction of a set of new police strategies in 1994. The number of civilian complaints against the police, however, rose dramatically after the new strategies were implemented. These two trends, moving in opposite directions, led many to speculate that the inevitable price of the dramatic drop in crime is an aggressive police force that generates more anger and resentment. This case study refutes the inevitability of a link between aggressive policing and citizen complaints of misconduct. In at least two neighborhoods in the Bronx, large reductions in crime occurred while complaints against officers declined below 1993. We examine several possible explanations for the decline in civilian complaints, analyzing statistical data and interviewing more than two dozen police officers, from the precinct commanders to the officers on patrol. We conclude that the most likely explanation for the decline in citizen complaints in these two precincts was efforts made by precinct commanders to promote respectful policing and change a police culture that tolerated citizen complaints.

Democratic control and border security in the Western Balkans

This note focuses on the best means for achieving civilian control of border security in the Balkans. Civilian control may be achieved through societal control (as in civilian complaint reviews) but such procedures require an established political culture that does not yet exist in the region. Civilian control also requires a degree of technical expertise, which is not always available among international officials, let alone local communities.

A tailored anger management program for reducing citizen complaints against traffic agents

Anger management programs have been used to address a range of clinical problems, but empirical tests of their effectiveness in the workplace have been limited. This study presents the results of a cognitive-behavioral anger management program employed with New York City traffic enforcement agents. Traffic agents issue summonses for vehicular and parking violations and have frequent conflicts with members of the public who are angry about receiving these summonses. Conflicts with the public are a significant source of job stress for agents and may increase their risk for physical injury. When members of the public are dissatisfied with the agents' actions, they can file a complaint with the agents' employer, the New York City Police Department. Complaints can reference the agent's interpersonal behavior or an administrative problem. The multi-component group intervention was provided to 114 agents, with a group of 184 agents served as the untreated comparison group. There was a significant Group (Treatment versus Control) by Time (Pre-test versus Post-test) interaction for the total rates of civilian complaints against agents (p<.03) and, more specifically, for the rates of civilian complaints related to the agents' interpersonal behavior (p<.01). Rates of civilian complaints against agents who participated in the treatment program decreased significantly over the testing period, whereas rates of complaints for agents in the control group did not change. The results suggest that this manualized program can produce changes in behavior relevant for the individual as well as the agency.

Police Violence in Israel: Has the Establishment of a Civilian Complaints Board Made a Difference?

Police violence in Israel was analyzed, especially how the establishment in 1992 of a civilian board for the investigation of police officers accused of using illegal force affected complaints against them. Official figures show a sharp increase in the number of files opened against police officers in general, and particularly those concerned with suspected use of illegal force, since 1992. This trend seems not to reflect actual worsening of police violence on the street but to be the result of wide public support for civilian involvement in the complaints system, of procedural changes in that system, and of specific demographic changes in the Israeli population. Despite expectations, the percentage of sustained illegal-use-of-force files investigated by the new civilian unit decreased significantly in comparison with the previous period, mainly on account of structural and procedural factors.

Zero Tolerance: A Case Study of Police Policies and Practices in New York City

The police reforms introduced in New York City by William Bratton are now hailed by Mayor Rudy Giuliani as the epitome of “zero-tolerance” policing, and he credits them for winning dramatic reductions in the city's crime rate. But the number of citizen complaints filed before the Civilian Complaint Review Board has jumped skyward, as has the number of lawsuits alleging police misconduct and abuse offorce. Comparison of crime rates, arrest statistics, and citizen complaints in New York with those in San Diego—where a more problem-oriented community policing strategy has been implemented—gives strong evidence that effective crime control can be achieved while producing fewer negative impacts on urban neighborhoods.

Organizational Aspects of Internal and External Review of the Police

The issue of civilian complaint review boards for incidents involving citizen grievances against the police has continued unresolved for over a decade. While most of the acrimonious debate has been carried on at the municipal level, Presidential commissions, the FBI, and many national organizations have contributed arguments and recommendations at one time or another.l Nevertheless, the debate has had to thrive mainly on ideology, rhetoric, and opinion, for few cities have experimented with civilian review boards, making data difficult to obtain. There i5 one city, however, that did have an operating civilian review board for a suicient length of time to permit an analysis of its activities. For about ten years (1958-1969), the Mayors of Philadelphia appointed a group of prominent citizens to the Philadelphia Police Advisory Board (PAB) that had a mandate to accept citizen complaints about alleged police misconduct.2 At the same time, the Philadelphia Police Department's Police Board of Inquiry (PBI) continued to hear cases that involved citizen complaints, although the bulk of its activity centered on intemally generated disciplinary cases. Data on both these